Anguish
darkness
those words
hanging in the air
staring at them
seemingly hours
To devote your life to another
to create life with them
and then to be cast aside so easily
with a smile
Unable to sleep
for days
looking at the ceiling
in bed
hating that pattern
even now
She hands me a coffee
first thought
perhaps
she wants me dead -
there is a life policy.
Maybe a million dollars
for her
and “lover”.
Days,
days,
without sleep.
I need my mother,
I need to be surrounded,
by those I love and trust -
not someone
who
while I read
bedtime stories
and
sing
nightly to our child,
could be downstairs
chatting up
another.
Who could do such a thing?
Hearing us singing and laughing
above her
while
she played
and chatted
with a stranger?
I have to get somewhere safe -
somewhere
I do not feel
my child will be taken away
by an emotionally distant mother
or
my coffee will be poisoned -
I pour it undrunk
down the sink.
I imagine them drinking the 1990
Penfold Grange,
that she gave me the year before
in Australia
800 dollar birthday present.
Our child and I,
half a world away -
me suffering
caring for him,
while she brings “troll” -
my name for him,
into our home.
I had intended to save
this bottle for something special
decades ahead,
but they will not drink it!
I open bottle
pour her a glass
pour myself a glass
make some meaningless,
surprisingly,
not critical
toast
then
raising to my lips,
I take the smallest taste,
pouring glass
and rest of bottle
down the kitchen sink.
During these six days,
song comes on,
that I have played the months previously
with my son -
“Dance With my Father”
he and I
dancing around the house,
as I sing the song to him,
the absolute joy on his face.
Now,
it plays
gets to point
where it is said that the mother
mourns the “only man she ever loved”
and I drop to my knees
in the kitchen
sobbing.
My four year old son
comes up to me
looking confused
“Are you crying because you are sad about mummy?”
“Yes”
I say.
Terrible memories,
but so happy
finally
to be away from someone
who does not know how to love
how to commit to another.
Finally
with someone who can love
until death.
As Mary Oliver says,
this box of darkness,
even this,
was a gift.
Lee Sturgis